The Eye of the Storm
by denouement-resolution
Summary: She was like the eye at the centre of a great storm raging all around them. So many others were swayed and turned from their true goals, swept into the howling winds around them. The world was spinning, and she alone stood still. She was his anchor, his rock, his Khaleesi. M for disturbing images.


**A small one-shot based on a prompt from someone on tumblr: 'Jorah, thoughts after the fire around Daenerys burns away and she's left in the rubble, holding her dragons.' The prompt came from the lovely davidduchovnys, so if you have a tumblr you should definitely check them out.**

**Part of me wanted to keep on editing this, but I haven't written in such a long time that it was always going to be hard, but I'm going to try writing more and more, so hopefully it's all uphill from here :-)**

**denouement-resolution**

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The horizon was red and orange now, the sun rising over the vast sands of the Red Waste, illuminating the pile of charred and blackened timber.

An hour could have passed until he looked away from the pyre, but it could have been a day, a week, an age. The Seven Kingdoms could have fallen under a storm of fire from Old Valyria come anew; the Wall could have come crashing down, bringing the age of the Andals to a shuddering halt as creatures from nightmares crossed the barrier into reality, wargs and Children of the Forest and giants; the Others themselves could have covered the land, spreading in a frozen wave with their pale skin and shimmering armour and ice blue eyes. He would have still been standing there. Vigilant, unmoving.

He had seen her walk into the fire, realised the horrific sensation of being burnt alive as he watched, helplessly. Jorah had imagined it so vividly that it was as if he himself was walking onto that pyre. He could imagine the searing heat as his skin and flesh was charred, smell the sweet, sickly scent of his own burning flesh, felt the soles of his feet split open under the great heat so that the bones slid out into the pyre, his eyes turning to jelly in their sockets.

It had taken more willpower and control than he knew he posessed to just keep his eyes on her, to watch her for what he believed would be the last time. After he had lost sight of her in the leaping, hungry flames, he had stood there for hours, staring into the same spot where he had last seen her. Jorah concentrated on the thought of her until all he could hear was the wailing of Mirri Maz Duur, the snapping and cracking of timber, and all he could see was a hot bright nothing.

When he finally dragged his eyes away from the pyre, and up to the shooting star, red as flame in the night sky, he knew that after morning came he would never allow himself to think of her again. She was a child in more ways than one, a stubborn, stubborn child. She would slip into his past, alive only as a memory, taking her place in the pages of his life next to Lynesse. For a moment, he allowed himself to imagine being back in his hall at Bear Island, Lord again, no longer exile. Wanted.

A child's dream. It had died first at the hand of Lord Eddard Stark, and for the second and last time at his own hand, when he had saved the Daenerys in Vaes Dothrak. She would have died a proud Khaleesi of the Dothrak, and the unborn Rhaego along with her, but a new future for Jorah would have been born. A small, selfish part of him wished she had died then, saved him the pain now, died when he could have had almost everything he'd ever wanted. Almost.

That always was his largest flaw, his selfishness. Every single bad turn in his life could be traced back to that apple on the tree, the bite he took to satisfy himself at the expense of others. He had know from the very moment he met Lynesse that it couldn't work, that she wasn't the kind of wife he needed to give him heirs and spend her days on a tiny, rugged island. She was made for banquets, balls and music and silken dresses, not nursing children in a cold stone castle in the most distant reaches of the north, but he had wanted her anyway. He had loved her, and wanted her for himself. He had loved so blindly he had not opened his eyes to the truth, and had sealed their own fate. Could he really have done that to Daenerys? His Khaleesi?

He sank to the ground, falling onto his knees and tilting his head back, gulping in great snatches of air. He had caused this too, somehow, in his own selfish way, not stopping Mirri Maz Duur, not walking into the pyre himself, not saving Rhaego. All he knew was that he felt sure, deep in his bones, that the guilt was his and his alone.

Smoke was still rising from the remains of the pyre, wisps of shadow in the bright surroundings. As he knelt in the dirt and the dust and the sand, a flicker of movement catching his eye as the wind blew apart the final plume of smoke.

In a daze he stood, and shakily made his way through the glowing ashes to the centre, where Drogo's funeral pyre had been. Her figure unfolded herself gracefully from the wreckage, the last scraps of her robe fluttering away, exposing her in her entirety as she held herself high and proud, like a true princess. Like a true Khaleesi.

Daenerys was standing there in front of him, unharmed, unmarked, and unblemished. She was streaked with soot and ash, her hair singed, but otherwise whole, perfect. Most remarkable of all, she wasn't alone. There were dragons. Not lizards with fake wings strapped to them as he'd seen in the markets of Braavos and Pentos, but real dragons, a black, a green, and a creamy gold.

Stunned, in shock, Jorah looked up into her face, searching for answers, for proof she was real. He closed his eyes, desperately trying to memorise her features all over again - her high, sharp cheekbones, her mouth, her nose, her eyelashes, her eyes. He had thought he'd lost her, had already begun to forget some of the details, blurred even now by the short passing of time.

Was it really her, his Khaleesi?

Out of everything that had happened to him since he became an exile, Daenerys was the always what he remebered the most, a character illuminated in bright cochineal reds and ground lapis luzuli on a sheet of parchment where the other characters where represented in dull greys, and browns, pale and watery.

His favourite memory of her was also one of his first - the fleeting look of happiness on her face when she was given the dragon eggs by Illyrio. She had looked momentarily transfixed, her fingers skimming over the scales. It had been like when a shaft of sunlight pierces through a rain cloud - fleeting, but for that second, you are sure it is brighter than any sun you have ever known.

Harder to remember though, was when he first realised he loved her, cared for her more deeply than anyone since Lysanne. Had it been a hundred tiny little things that built up, so that he came to love her gradually, without even knowing until it was too late? He remembered how he'd felt the day she'd suddenly stopped calling him 'Ser', how he taught her snatches of Dothraki whilst they were riding, teaching her the Dothraki way, acting as her knight, teacher and protector.

Now that she was here again, standing in front of him, regal, beautiful, powerful, he realised when it was that he had fallen in love with her, when it had passed from an infatuation to a dangerous affliction.

It was when she had eaten the horse heart in front of the Dothraki. Jorah had been amazed that she had devoured it so quickly, raw and warm, and he realised then how deeply her emotions ran. She felt so strongly for Drogo that she had eaten the heart for him, that she wanted him to be proud of her so badly that she would do anything for him.

He saw it again when she saved the Lamb women, when she vouched for Mirri Maz Duur when no-one else would, when she defied the entire Khalasar in an attempt to save Drogo, when she willingly walked into the flames to be with him.

It was as if, to him, she did not have blood in her veins, but channels of emotion. Every emotion she felt, she felt so deeply throughout her that no-one could sway her, no-one could change her mind. When she loved, she loved so fiercely and so passionately that she would die for Drogo, and defy a thousand men in the process. When she dispensed justice, no mercies or bribery or flattery would stay her hand.

She was like the eye at the centre of a great storm raging all around them. So many others were swayed and turned from their true goals, swept into the howling winds around them. The world was spinning, and she alone stood still. She was his anchor, his rock, his Khaleesi.

Opening his mouth finally, Jorah found that he couldn't speak. He had so many words that were filling up inside him, like water, swirling around inside them, but he knew that if he moved his tongue in the wrong way, the words would spill out, falling to the ground and splashing, and soaked up by the parched earth. Looking into her eyes however, it was as if it all became clear. He knew what to say, what to do.

'Khaleesi,' he murmered, stepping closer to her, wanting nothing more than to cup her face in the palms of his hands, touch her, make sure she was real, make her his. He would protect her as Drogo could no longer, to look after her. He would be her knight, her champion.

Her brave bear.


End file.
